Chapter Text
Santos is the first person he asks. She makes the most sense. Robby's sure that the general vibe and essence a stoner gives off has changed since he's checked last, but she's always paraded around with that fuck-may-care attitude that, while initially felt a bit forced, has proven to be her state of homeostasis. Despite being out of the game for a while, he does know that there's no use in beating around the bush when asking, so he doesn't.
"Where do you get your pot?" He asks her one dull afternoon, both of them staring up at the board. The kind of afternoon where cherry-picking is secretly allowed, as long as you don't make it too obvious. The question comes after Trinity tugs on her stethoscope, relaying to him her plans of laying on the couch and showing The Big Lebowski to Whitaker for the first time that weekend. Seemed like a good segue.
Trinity's face falls in disbelief. Robby watches as she chokes back a laugh. "Who's asking?" He chuckles.
"C'mon."
She lets her smile fully crack across her face. "Well, first off, you probably shouldn't call it pot," she advises, "makes you sound pretty old. "Secondly, I—" she stops herself. Another stifled laugh. "Actually, you're never going to guess who I got my guy from." His head gives a little incredulous shake, uninterested. Trinity wastes little time before sharing. "Whitaker."
His laughs. Their voices fall into syrupy whispers. "Whitaker?"
"Yeah. It's pretty good shit, too." She laughs, a bit more heartily. Robby never really took him for the type. "I didn't really think you were… into that." He scoffs.
"I'm not as old and out of touch as you think I am."
"No," she immediately fires back, "you just have never given me stoner vibes." His disdain must show on his face, because she twists her face into a shit-eating grin. "Sorry if that comes as a surprise to you, brother."
Brother. She had heard Abbot call him that once in earnest and won't let him live it down. He normally welcomes her ribbings, but this one always sticks in his craw, like a day-old popcorn kernel.
The conversation still yields her texting him the number for her dealer, and he swiftly shoots off a text asking in as semi-cool of a way as he can muster if it were possible if he could get any pot, he got this number from a coworker, he'd be willing to buy by the ounce. It gets handled and the process is much more similar to how he remembers it than he anticipated, which fluffs his ego a bit. A nice side effect to all of this.
Weed just sounded easier than going to the trouble of seeking out a professional. Much easier to fall back into the arms of an old habit—one that didn't have any real negative side effects—than begin that process of slowly picking at the foil of all of that. Besides, it wasn't like it would turn into something dangerous. His job didn't allow him the luxury of being a stoner. But if there were an evening that didn't require anything of him, it sounded like heaven. Sinking into the couch and letting the troubles of the day, the troubles of his life, melt away into puddles. It's homeopathic. At least that's what he tells himself.
So Robby finds himself sitting on the rooftop one evening after a dreaded shift—her first shift back after the single month she'd been gone—and thinks to pull one out from the small joint stash he keeps in his backpack now (an old Altoids tin; what he used when he last did this), utilizing the moment of silence. He likes the idea of floating back home, wind at his face. One of those somatic experiences that when enhanced with a drug, feel life-affirming. Save for the icy breeze, it's a nice evening outside. The skyline twinkles with the last dregs of the sunset glowing at its base. Traffic hums below, picking up for the evening. It's a nice, relaxing respite until the door to the stairs clicks open.
His ears prick at the initial sound, and then does a full body jump when it falls shut with a clang. Likely blown shut by the breeze. He hopes so, anyway. Otherwise it's someone slamming it shut, likely upset. Either way, it's someone. A brief internal panic flashes in his gut, eyes widening like prey. As soon as the feeling comes, he's able to walk himself back. No one who comes up here is going to care about this. Robby can count on two fingers who he absolutely can't have find him like this, and he's pretty sure Gloria doesn't even know about the roof.
Of course—it's Baran.
He knows she doesn't see him at first, cleverly hidden behind a smoke stack. It doesn't seem like it matters either way. She walks with purpose towards the ledge, hands shuffling something he can't make out easily. Robby squints. It's a pack of cigarettes. She stands far enough away from him that he knows she can't make him out in her periphery, both looking out at the same skyline. Robby wonders if she finds it as beautiful as he does. Briefly, he contemplates letting her take this smoke break in private (never really pegging her as a smoke breaker), stubbing his joint out on the cement beneath him. She wears a giant cable knit scarf and an oversized hoodie, clearly grabbed hastily from one of the rolling chairs by the admit desk. It looks like McKay's. He forgets that they've forged some kind of workplace friendship. Her hair's been bundled up in the scarf, the wind pulling errant curls from its grasp into the breeze. He's always admired her hair, particularly how she sets it free at the end of a shift. It softens her, both physically and metaphorically. He can tell the outfit was put together hastily; she shivers a bit in the breeze. Despite not wanting to be caught out, he certainly can't stop watching her. Better to write it off as trying to anticipate her next move. Frustration breaks across her face as she tips the pack into her palm. Her hands dig around in her sweater pockets, then her scrub pockets. Robby bites back a laugh, recognizing the predicament.
"D'you need a light?"
Baran jumps, taken off guard. Not his intention, but he's sure she won't see things that way. She turns to look at him then, eyes wide and bleary. He watches as the realization settles into her face. "Sorry," he adds, slowly getting up from his seated position and walking towards her, hand shuffling around in his jacket pocket for a lighter. "I didn't mean to startle you." As he gets closer, he extends his Bic in her direction. An olive branch. She stares, lips pursed indignantly.
"Thanks." She takes it, knocking a cigarette out of its box and positioning it between her fingers. Marlboro Lights. Sounds about right. A laugh bites at his lips as he watches on, Baran struggling to light her cigarette in the wind.
"D'you want any help—?"
"I've got it," she snaps. Her lips fall into a sneer, cigarette dangling from her bottom lip. Still, no amount of snark lights her cigarette, frustration beginning to grow on her face. Robby laughs. They're standing closer now, him looking down to try and meet her eyes, knowing she won't let him. His smile doesn't waver. He hopes she doesn't think he's laughing at her—well, maybe he is. A least a little bit. Baran's stubbornness feels like a mirror sometimes, one he isn't always a fan of. Still, even if only subconsciously, it's nice to see yourself in someone else.
"C'mon," Robby coaxes, angling for his lighter. He grabs it from her hands and she instinctively tries to pull it back, but he holds it over her head, just out of reach. She responds in such a way that tells him that she's used to this; she must have grown up with an older brother. A mean smirk curls across her face and her eyes tip up to meet his. He flicks the lighter, flame flickering in the wind. Without saying anything she leans forward, cigarette pursed between her lips. Normally, the act would feel intimate; a move deployed in the hopes of getting her wrapped around his finger. But because it's her, nothing about it feels particularly charged. If anything, it feels like another peace offering. Maybe, he realizes then, he should offer her more of those. Seems like he may need to be the one to do so (which doesn't necessarily bother him).
She inhales, smoke puffing from the cigarette. She extends the courtesy of blowing the smoke away from his face, but still won't spend too long looking at him, eyes gazing out onto the skyline again. Save for the wind, it's a pretty nice night outside. Being in the middle of winter will have anyone romanticizing an evening above 40 degrees. Robby shoves his hands in his pockets, still looking at her. "I didn't know you smoked."
"I don't," she protests. Another drag. "At least not—I don't." The ease with which she holds and gestures with her cigarette says otherwise.
"I used to," he offers, tossing a life preserver in her direction. "I quit a few years back. Covid kind of… scared me straight." The scab over that wound is fresher than expected so his voice breaks a bit, nothing that can't be obscured with a quick clearing of his throat. "One of the hardest things I've ever done." The way she stares out onto the skyline makes him feel like he's talking to himself.
"I quit when I found out I was pregnant," she says towards the sky. "But it's always been less of a habit and more of a vice." That explains why he's never caught her in the ambulance bay with the EMTs. Cigarettes are stolen rewards in her world. "Anyway, I don't need the Friday Night Lights speech. Thanks." Baran takes another drag from her cigarette, smoke blown out of her nose. "I don't do this all the time." Robby looks at her patiently, hoping she'll interpret his gaze as such.
"Long day," he eventually says. "You seem to be managing pretty well, though." He angles his head, hoping to catch her eyes again. "Not that—well. I don't mean anything by that. Baran angles her gaze over at him, eyes narrowed in suspicion. Robby wonders if she's trying to catch him saying something he shouldn't. He shoves his hands in his pockets, shrugging. "But I do think it's worth telling you. It's nice to have you back." She turns to look at him, wind whipping her hair around her face. He watches as something brews behind her eyes, skepticism defrosting.
"Thanks," she says, visibly softening. Neither of them say anything for a good while, him looking back out at the skyline and her ruefully puffing away at her cigarette, perhaps still slightly ashamed for having been caught. He's seen the emotion on her face before, so it's easier to recognize now on a much smaller scale.
"You off soon?"
Baran blows another plume of smoke away from him. "I'm killing time," she says. "The T is down, anyway. Figured this was better than killing time in the cafeteria." Her face twinges a bit and he can't tell if it's the cold or her mentioning of the light rail, something he wonders if she wears like a secret badge of dishonor. It doesn't come out of her easily, like taking public transport is some kind of confession. Clearly a sore spot of sorts. A smile twitches at the corner of her mouth as she looks back at him. "Why, what's your excuse?"
Robby exhales, his own smile forming. He wonders if she knows about the pot. If this was happening four months ago, he probably wouldn't be so indifferent towards her knowing. Wasn't trust just secrets shared over time? "I'm not smoking." He says so smugly, like she's the stupid one for asking.
"Oh, please." She rolls her eyes, smile growing wider. He likes her smile. Wishes he could see it more often. "I wasn't born yesterday. You smell like a pothead." Her tone is less admonishing, more annoyed. It makes him laugh. Baran tosses her cigarette on the roof and smashes in under her shoe. Robby's always thought it better to smell like a pothead than an ashtray, but he won't tell her as much, letting her think she's won (this time).
"Yeah," he confesses, head nodding. Robby laughs again. "Why, y'want some?"
She stares at him, mouth hung open in a cynical smile. For some reason, he knows that she'll say yes before she agrees.
They end up returning to the spot he'd been sitting in earlier, backs pressed up against the brick of the old, unused smoke stack. Baran smokes the joint like a cigarette; short puffs and smoke blown out the nose as it burns between her index and middle finger. Baran doesn't strike him as someone who smokes weed often, if at all. He's still kind of reeling from the surprise of her agreeing to join him.
After a while, when both of them are good and going, a bitter sounding laugh breaks through her lips. "You know, I think I owe you an apology," she says, her voice small. Her face has softened now, eyes heavy and bloodshot. She struggles to meet his eyes but he seeks hers out, angling his head just so in order to look at them. "That night you drove me home, I—" She pauses, ashing the joint on the roof. "I was a real asshole."
He nods. "Yeah." Robby takes the joint back from her, taking a long pull. "Yeah. You were." He chuckles softly. He remembers that pretty well. He'd gone outside to get some air before heading home, smartly avoiding the rooftop knowing that there would be people watching fireworks and settling for the top of the parking garage. He wasn't expecting to find her there, leaning against the cement retaining wall and looking up at the sky for fireworks. She'd obviously been crying. He had been too, so he didn't say anything. Sometimes, he wants to ask her if she'd recognized that that night, but he doubts she even remembers. A brief conversation turned in to him offering to give her a ride home, which she scoffed at.
"I'm not getting on that stupid bike of yours."
Robby laughed at this. "Ouch," he'd said sarcastically, grabbing at his chest like he'd been stabbed. Baran laughed. It wasn't his intention—nor had he really thought about it, of course she'd said no—but he can't deny that it's kind of funny. It hearkened back to the weird volley they had been in earlier that day, flirting by way of cheeky innuendos and risky medical procedures performed in front of one another. "I'm serious, though." He tipped his head towards her car, still parked outside of a designated spot. "I'll drive your car. I can take an Uber home, whatever." She agreed, the loss of control clearly the sore spot for her. The drive to her place was quiet, the car radio keeping them from sitting in total silence. He understood, hoping she would pick up on that. Robby doubted she did.
It's what makes her admission to him now cause him to feel a bit better about whatever state their relationship is in. "But, y'know. Takes one to know one." Robby pulls a slight face then, hoping she won't mind. He likes to think the pot's been working long enough to cause her to loosen up around him—at the very least, it's caused her shoulders to drop from her ears.
She still won't look at him, choosing to look out onto the skyline instead, wind at her face. "You know how sometimes something will happen or someone will say something that makes you feel like a powerless little kid again?" Baran's eyes finally find his. It sucks the air out of his lungs. Robby wishes he could find a word to accurately describe the feeling that it stirs in him. He's normally good with those—but her eyes, so sad and expressive, render him useless. "That was how I felt that night. And you weren't trying to make me feel that way, so. I'm sorry." They share a melancholic look as their eyes meet, and he's not sure if it's the weed, or if it's just her, but warmth blooms across his face, prickly like a sunburn. He knows he can't tell her how meaningful it is to hear her say that, so he doesn't—but it does elevate her in his mind to a place he'd never really thought she'd occupy. "You've been really great. With all of this." Robby passes the joint back to her and she gestures with it before bringing it to her lips. "You didn't have to be."
He thinks of her single month away—a month to "reassess," according to her neurologist and hospital administration—and it unearths all of these feelings he'd thought he'd gotten over, or, at the very least, reconciled. The month had delayed his trip. When he got back, there were rules: Gloria had bitten at her two attendings per shift idea and the two of them were scheduled together now, nearly every day. Something about "building a good working relationship" and "leaning on each other." Robby knew what that was code for. Baran wasn't to pick up or run codes on any pediatric cases unless she explicitly said she would, which throws a major wrench into the flow of the ED. He ultimately bore the burden, which annoyed him to begin with but eventually became another part of his workday, like anything else that gets shouldered. Robby anticipated that first shift back to be thorny, like tug-of-war with barbed wire. To his surprise, it wasn't. He got to work and there she was, no longer as eager to work alongside him as she had been the day they met, but still ever the professional, skilled, and empathetic doctor he knew he wasn't at times. They complemented each other. If he worked for smarter people, he'd assume that was by design.
One day early on into his return, when he was still a bit prickly to anyone who got too close, she reassured him that things would be okay.
"I know you don't think this is a good idea," she had said in front of the break room coffee maker, eyes more interested in the mug of tea before her than his own. It caught him by surprise. Clearly, it was a thought that had been eating at her all day. "But I promise that I'm much better." A past version of himself might have made some kind of snide comment about how she was allowed to intubate a patient but not drive her car, but the version of himself that day wasn't as indifferent to the vulnerability of others.
"I just want you to be safe," he said in return. "For you and your patients." Robby didn't see the point in continuing the conversation then, making his leave with his coffee in tow. "But mostly for your own sake."
Her head tips back against the brick as she blows a plume of smoke into the air. Robby takes the moment to admire her; the way her lips purse around the joint that will eventually host his own again, how her eyes remain huge and glassy and impossible not to get lost in. He remembers having this thought when they first met—before he had formed any real opinion about her other than she was lucky she was so pretty considering how annoying she could be—and it crushes him a bit. If eyes were windows to the soul, hers were stained glass, belonging in some European cathedral. The history of the world seemed to live within her eyes.
(Not with him, though. She still stayed rather tight lipped about everything since the last time she entrusted him with anything.)
Baran meets his eyes. This time, it feels like an electrical shock. Robby writes the feeling off as simply being stoned.
"Thanks, Michael." His first name in her mouth feels wrong. She doesn't even use his last name on its own too often, just his title. Sometimes, just his honorific when he catches her on a particularly salty day; a teasing "whatever you say, doctor" leaving her in a sneer. His name now, however, sounds sweet. There isn't any hint of malice or ire. He thinks of her son, whose name he doesn't know yet, and how she must say his name with this level of kindness. He bets she's a good mom. Before he can respond, her eyes leaden, smile cracking across her face. "How'd you get that nickname, anyway?" She takes another drag from the joint now, fingers pinching around the filter as it burns to a nub. Robby smiles at her and for the first time, she reciprocates.
"Med school," he tells her, hand reaching up to rub the back of his neck, stiff from being propped up against the cold brick. "Robinavitch was too hard for a certain attending during my pedes rotation. It just kind of stuck."
"It's too bad you don't go by Doctor Robinavitch," she says, a kindness blooming in her eyes. "It's a very beautiful name." He laughs, rolling his eyes. Baran persists. "It lets people know where your family's from. I think that's beautiful." Robby's never thought of it that way. He supposes she's right, albeit pretty stoned.
"I can't tell you how often people think my first name's Robert," he complains, laugh breaking through. She giggles at this.
"Try being called Doctor Al," she throws back, laughing. Baran has the kind of laugh that invites others to join her, so he does. She groans, stretching her legs out in front of them on the ground. She laughs, but he senses the deep ire she holds for this nickname—one he'd bet was bestowed upon her in an effort to make her smaller, just like his. "Do you know what that translates to in English?" She looks at him expectantly again, smile persisting. Robby gets his wish from earlier. Her two front teeth sink into her bottom lip and he immediately catalogues it as endearing. Makes him wonder if anyone's ever called her 'bunny' as a pet name before, past lovers or otherwise. She leans into him, their shoulders just touching. "Doctor The."
Robby laughs—full throated, definitely prolonged because of his high. It's not so much what she says, but how she says it, as if it's a secret. "Makes you sound like a Bond villain," he gets out. Her nose wrinkles up in satisfaction at this. As she looks up at him through heavy lidded eyes, he feels that warm sensation tickle his nose again.
"You know," she starts, "you're pretty funny." A brief silence hangs over them, filled by the hum of traffic and the static that fills his head when her eyes look into his for too long. "Don't tell anyone else I said that." Baran looks back out at the skyline. "I'll deny it if you do."
Robby thinks, then, of all of the secrets they hold for one another, big and small, mainly of moments where one of them has caught in a state of naked vulnerability. He's sure it's the pot—for his sake, it has to be—and tries to force the feeling away with a shrug of his shoulders. It doesn't go anywhere, pinned to his chest. Baran offers him the end of his joint, burned down to a roach now and he shakes his head. She takes one final sip from it before crushing it under her foot. Her head falls back against the brick and he watches as she takes a deep inhale through her nose, wind pushing her hair away from her face.
"You're stoned," he tells her, and she nods, eyes closed. Robby decides to press his luck. "Want me to walk to you to the T?"
Her eyes slowly open and she looks at him, lazy smile drawn across her face. "Yeah," she nods, pushing her hair back behind her ears. "I'd really like that."